490 Prof. T. McKenny Hughes — The Ffynon Beuno Caves. 



between A and B ; but there is a good deal of evidence in some 

 localities. 



3. The almost universal covering of re-sorted drifts and rain-wash, 

 the results of subaerial denudation since the submergence. 



If the mouth of a cave is said to be blocked by drift, we must be 

 careful to enquire lohat drift, before we take it as a measure of the 

 age of the cave-deposits. 



There are some other points also which must be attended to. We 

 must distinguish between the age of the caves and that of the cave- 

 deposits. So many changes and modifications go on in some cases 

 that their history and that of their contents cannot always be read, 

 even during the most careful excavation. 



There are in the Vale of Clwyd many caves representing subter- 

 ranean channels through which the water running off the Silurian 

 hills around, drops into fissures on reaching the Mountain Limestone, 

 and finds its way to lower ground. Some of these caves are being 

 formed now, and in some of them mud still settles after floods. 

 Bones and stones still get washed down into the fissures which feed 

 the cave, and these fissures are often enlarged or new ones opened 

 where the moisture can get access to the rock. So of course the 

 wash from the superficial deposits forms a large item in the later 

 packing of a cave. In the Plas Heaton cave, which I explored with 

 the late Mr. John Heaton, I found pieces of magnums in the 

 cave-earth which were beyond where man could creep when I first 

 knew the cave. The other end of that cave was blocked with clay, 

 full of glaciated boulders : a mass undistinguishable from the clayey 

 Clwydian drift. In the Pontnewydd cave, on the other hand, I 

 found felstone implements and flint flakes not far from the surface 

 near the mouth of the cave. 



The limestone on both sides of the little ravine which runs down 

 into the Vale of Clwyd at Ffynon Beuno, near the village of 

 Tremeirchion, is perforated with numerous caves and cavernous 

 places. They very frequently coincide more or less with lines of 

 joint and small faults, along which calc-spar and various minerals 

 suggested the possibility of ore. One precipitous face on the north 

 side had an open cave large enough to furnish a shelter for cattle. 

 In this trial-holes had been dug, and the cave-earth had been moved 

 in places. The fragments of bone lying about suggested that the 

 Sheep and Fox of to-day had once been represented by the Stag and 

 Hyaena, and I suggested to the Chester Natural Science Society to 

 open these caves, and foretold the probability of our obtaining the 

 remains of Primeval Man. The following year Dr. Hicks excavated 

 near the mouth of the cave, and obtained such interesting results, 

 that he obtained a grant from the Eoyal Society, and afterwards 

 from the British Association, to enable him to carry on the explora- 

 tions, the results of which he has laid before the Association and 

 other scientific societies. A few feet higher up the rock -face is 

 another opening belonging to the same drainage-system. This also 

 has been excavated by Dr. Hicks and Mr. Luxmoore, and it has been 

 supposed that in it evidence has been obtained of the residence of 



